But it is no accident that the civil rights groups and attorneys are lined up on the same side in a lawsuit alleging that Summit County has violated the Fair Housing Act by failing to zone for adequate affordable housing. And it is not coincidental that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Utah Coalition of La Raza and the Disabled Rights Action Committee did not find the county's zoning laws discriminatory until Salt Lake City-based attorneys Michael Hutchings and Bruce Baird told them so.

Hutchings and Baird are in the business of suing counties and cities to force them to amend zoning laws to accommodate development on property owned by their clients. They brought civil rights groups on board to sue Bluffdale in Salt Lake County and Fruit Heights in Davis County for zoning practices they alleged were discriminatory.

The attorneys say they are doing the cities' low-income residents a favor, while they are representing the interests of landowners and developers. But some Bluffdale city officials say the resulting zoning change wreaked havoc with their plans to encourage developers to leave some open space in their once-pastoral community.

Hutchings and Baird represent developers in seven lawsuits against Summit County's zoning ordinances. The civil rights suit, which they filed without charging a fee, looks suspiciously like litigation strategy to force the county to abandon its zoning plan that rightly recognizes the economic and aesthetic value of maintaining open space and a resort-like atmosphere in western portions of the county, especially Snyderville Basin.

Visitors come to this Wasatch-back community for the mountain air and vistas. If those are replaced by air pollution and asphalt, the tourism that is essential to the county could wane.

The county currently has 1,800 units that meet federal fair-housing standards and it has approved 600 more. Commissioners rightly encourage clustered developments in unincorporated areas that include open space and require that affordable housing be incorporated into each new development.

Summit County should continue to encourage diversity while, at the same time, protecting the open space that is vital to its future.